People always say that the cock of a gun is one of the single most distinct sounds around. It was in that moment I finally understood what that meant. It cut through the silence that had settled after Maisey’s accusation.
“Well don’t I feel like a fool?” Sutton said, his service weapon pointed at Cortez’s chest as he stepped out of the shadows from what looked like an old, abandoned office in the corner of the building. It was so dark it was hard to make anything out. There was a mumble of surprise that was followed by four more guns repeating the same sound Sutton’s had. It was clear no one had known he was there, and as he stepped to the side to get a better aim at Cortez, I could see the dim light from where the door behind him had been left open. He’d only just arrived.
I looked from the shadows to Drew in the middle. Another flash of fear ran down my spine, because by all accounts, he was in the crossfire of every single one of them.
“It’s not—” Maisey started, but Sutton cut her off, shaking his head.
“You used me?” he asked painfully. “It was all a lie?”
“No…”
“We hadchildrentogether.”
“Howard, wait.”
“You’re never gonna see our kids again, Maise.” He reached for the radio on his shoulder and pressed the button. “This is Chief Sutton requesting back u—”
He never got to finish the sentence. The deafening roar of a gun going off triggered a domino effect, and all I could do was drop to the floor, keep my eyes on Drew and pray for a miracle.
Chapter Forty-Two
Drew
The second I saw Sutton, I knew what would happen. The sound of the first shot going off sent my eyes darting straight to Ayda’s, and when she looked back at me through the roar of the noise around us, I was unblinking.
If I was going to die, she was the last thing I wanted to see.
It didn’t last long, and by the time the guns had been put down, it was Maisey’s screams that were making more noise than anything else. She was hunched over in front of me, her hands clasped to her ears as she cried out at the horror of what she had planted herself slap bang in the middle of.
Cortez reacted immediately, gripping the back of her top and yanking her to his side to tell her to shut the fuck up.
Then it fell quiet again, and all that could be heard was the low, painful groan coming from the other side of the room from Chief Sutton. He’d been shot, but he wasn’t dead. Not yet, anyway. Something told me that it wouldn’t be long before he was silenced for good.
“Howard,” Maisey whimpered quietly, her hands moving to her mouth.
I was still focused on Ayda, staring into those baby bluesas she tried not to show the horror she was so obviously feeling.
“I didn’t mean for you—”
“Didn’t I just tell you to shut the fuck up?” Cortez shouted in her ear, yanking her around like she was nothing more than a rag doll.
“Put her down,” Sutton groaned as he rolled around. My eyes darted up in his direction as his movements caught my attention. His hand was gripping his arm, but I couldn’t see blood pouring from anywhere else as he tried to scramble across the floor for his radio.
Before he could get there, an Emp kicked it way out of reach and Cortez suddenly flipped gears beside me.
“Put her down?” he shouted, pushing Maisey to the floor as her sobs turned to screams once again. She shrieked in surprise as she landed beside Ayda in a heap, the force with which he’d thrown her causing her to skid across the rough surface before she finally came to a stop. “Put her down, he says.”
Cortez wasted no time giving his signal. With a swift snap of his fingers, he’d pointed to the guy next to him and given his order. There wasn’t time for anyone to do or say anything before the gun was pulled out from his cut and aimed directly at Maisey’s head.
“The law wants her put down. It shall be so.”
The eruption of the bullet felt sharper than the others had, the sound of it hitting her square in the head like a dull thud as it met its target swiftly and sent blood spraying out all around her.
The moment the sound stopped bouncing from the walls around the empty space, Ayda seemed to realize exactly whathad just happened. Her eyes widened in horror as she tried to scramble away using only her feet. She made no other sound than a horrified whimper, even as the asshole behind her twisted her hair around his hand and pulled her back into place and onto her knees so she was facing Maisey’s lifeless body.
I could take anything they had to serve to me. I’d been through it all before. I'd seen men die. My body carried more war scars than that of a soldier’s. I was a patchwork of horrors. Anything that could ever have happened to a man had happened to me, but as soon as I saw Ayda’s face as she was forced to stare at Maisey, I knew that not a single one of those wounds had ever hurt me as much as the look she was wearing right then.
Ayda was there because of me, and in living the dream with her the way I had been doing, I’d brought her to her worst nightmare. She was staring death in the face and neither one of us could do anything to ever take that away from her. From that moment on, she’d be changed forever.
